Some years ago we planted a magnolia bush in our garden and waited for the springtime when its large blooms would prove a beauty spot on the lawn. It bloomed sparsely tor a season or two and then ceased. We dug about it and fertilized the soil, but to no avail; it barely survived the next year.
Then we learned the proper treatment for it. Immediately it sprang into new life. From out of its roots came forth a new shoot which grew so rapidly that soon it became the main stem of the plant and buds for the next season formed in profusion. As we watched the transformation we remembered the history of Israel, and its failure to bring forth righteousness; and there came to mind the prophecies concerning the Seed of David, the Messiah, the Righteous Branch.
For ages Israel had not responded to the treatment of the prophets who were sent to speak in the name of God and who endeavored to awaken the people to spirituality and righteousness. Then God did something. He sent His only begotten Son, and there was fulfilled the words of the Prophet Isaiah “There shall come forth a Rod out of the stem of Jesse and a Branch shall grow out of his roots” (Isa 11:1).
Jesse was the father of David and this prophecy referred to the coming of David’s “greater Son” — the Christ — who would spring out of the line of David at a time when Israel would be in an almost hopeless condition. At his birth it was said by the angel Gabriel, “He shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Highest, and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there shall be no end” (Luke 1:32-33).
Here in our garden we had an illustration of the revival of the hopes of the faithful in Israel who had waited for the “consolation” and rejoiced to see the Lord’s Anointed. Israel as a whole did not respond to this opportunity to receive the Messiah: “He came to his own but his own received him not” (John 1:11).
But the “Rod out of the stem of Jesse” has grown to be the “Tree of Life” in the garden of the Lord. In him all the promises of God are centered and through this “Branch of Righteousness” all of God’s plans and purposes will be accomplished. As the new strong shoot grew and sent forth its own branches, the old, withered branches of the original stock were pruned away. How like Israel of old — they were “broken off because of unbelief.” And a people (the Gentiles) who had not known God were caused to come forth and blossom from the strength of the original tree.
From this we see the character of the divine plan of salvation. God intended from the beginning to bless all nations, who would hear His voice. He chose the Jewish people as the means of sending His blessing and the knowledge of His ways all over the world. But the Jews in selfish egotism thought that they alone were the favored recipients of God’s favor. The mere mention of the Gentiles as possible benefactors of God’s mercy was enough to rouse the Jewish mind to fury, as so often occurred in the life of Paul.
And this selfishness withered the Jewish soul and caused him to fail in his God-given opportunity to serve all mankind. But God would not be thwarted. He sent His Son to be a “light to lighten the Gentiles.”
And that Son of God who was also Son of David, grew up to be the Rod out of the stem of Jesse to whom the “Gentiles were to seek” and find righteousness through the forgiveness of their sins because of their faith in God’s “Branch of Righteousness.”
And there in the lawn my magnolia tree bears witness in its own “natural” way to God’s “mystery of the gospel” as to how the Gentiles should be brought into the blessings of the covenant which He promised to Abraham, and become fellow-heirs of the household of faith; and how the “Branch” of David should become the “tree of life” for the healing of the nations.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One